


Tabula Rasa

by Prevalent_Masters



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Bonding moments with Nile, Books, Bookstores, Finding comfort in words and stories as the world passes you by, Historical References, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, a crash course in the development of book binding and book printing 1100-2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28744179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prevalent_Masters/pseuds/Prevalent_Masters
Summary: “I was just looking at the books,” he said, and Yusuf huffed. But later that night, Yusuf looked at him long and hard, like he was trying to puzzle something out.“What?” he said, tearing a piece of bread off a loaf and stuffing it in his mouth so as not to get lost in Yusuf’s eyes, which he found highly distracting.“I didn’t know you could read,” Yusuf said.*Or, a brief history of Joe, Nicky, and the printed word.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 70
Kudos: 388





	1. Tabula Rasa

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2 consists entirely of notes and references, but just a few things to note here: Firstly, I reference the COVID pandemic a few times in this story, so be aware of that if it makes you uncomfortable. I also pretend that travel will be safe by July 2021 (we can only hope) for the sake of the timeline. Additionally, the present-day events in this fic take place a few years post canon, but Quỳnh is not in the picture yet. There are some vague references to a crisis of faith. Other than that, all I can say is I'm not a historian or scholar, so if you spot mistakes, please do let me know.

**Alexandria, Egypt**

**May 1100**

The sprawling market of Alexandria was an assault on the senses, especially after months of travelling with only Yusuf for company. They spent most of their time together in silence, communicating in clumsy Greek and the few words of Sabir Nicolò knew. Alexandria was the first city they stopped in—they’d skirted around most settlements between Jerusalem and Egypt, eager to avoid curious eyes and any vestiges of the Christian army. It was overwhelming after so much empty countryside and simmering, distrustful silence—the shouting of vendors, the clamor of carts and donkeys and camels, squawking chickens and bleating goats, the call of fishermen, the smell of the sea and the spices sold in towering piles under awnings, the bright colors of fruits and fabrics and mazes of narrow streets and old stone buildings and _people_. In the chaos, he felt more lost than ever before.

The paper market was tucked back in a maze of shops built into the old stone walls of the city, away from the harbor and more peaceful for it. Stall after stall of papyrus, vellum and, most importantly, paper. Piles and piles of it, more than he could ever imagine, and so inexpensive. At home, paper was considered inferior to vellum and parchment and banned for use in the monasteries. Here, it was everywhere, and with it—books. 

He knew how to read, thanks to the monastery, but he’d only ever read or copied religious and liturgical texts. The Bible, of course, and the lives of saints, works of liturgical laws and practices, lists of births and deaths from the monastery and the nearby town. He was awed the first time he saw the small room that housed the monastery’s library. The booksellers at the paper market nearly brought him to his knees.

Yusuf was looking for cheap ink and paper, hurrying through the stalls, and Nicolò tried to keep up with him, but kept falling behind, captivated by illuminated pages and decorated bindings. Scribes sat at every turn, offering their services to anyone who would pay. He watched one hard at work, copying down poetry, richly illuminating the margins. Cheaper than the scribes were the books already bound, stacks of paper sewn together with silk and covered in leather—copies of the Qur’an and the Coptic Bible, volumes of poetry and medicine and astronomy, folktales and history. Most were in Arabic, but some were in Greek, enough for him to catch titles and subjects here and there. He lingered, running his fingers over leather and delicate paper until shopkeepers eyed him with annoyance.

“Nicolò!” Yusuf appeared at his side, taking his elbow and tugging him away. He carried a parcel, so Nicolò assumed he’d had luck finding the inks and paper that fit his budget. “If you insist on following me, at the very least try to keep up. I don’t want to lose you in a market.” He sounded annoyed.

“I was just looking at the books,” he said, and Yusuf huffed. But later that night, Yusuf looked at him long and hard, like he was trying to puzzle something out.

“What?” he said, tearing a piece of bread off a loaf and stuffing it in his mouth so as not to get lost in Yusuf’s eyes, which he found highly distracting.

“I didn’t know you could _read_ ,” Yusuf said.

“I was a priest! We read. You’ve seen me write, how could I write without reading?”

“It is generous to call the chicken-scratch you produce _writing_.”

He worked very hard to bite back a retort and didn’t quite succeed. “I was one of the best scribes at the monastery.”

Yusuf snorted. “I shudder to think what that library looked like, then. You looked shocked to see so many books.”

He ducked his head. “Yes, well. Our library was small, and we did not use paper. It is too delicate, it rots away in a matter of years. No good for record keeping, or for scripture.”

Yusuf snorted again. “If you bind it well and store it safely it is no worse than parchment, and much easier to work with. And it doesn’t swell and smell when it gets humid! Come, look.” He beckoned and Nicolò, though annoyed, couldn’t quell his curiosity. He moved to sit beside Yusuf and watched as he unpacked the paper, pens and ink. The paper was smooth, like vellum, but more delicate, thin and pale under Yusuf’s pen. “See?” he said as he sketched quickly. “No fiber pattern like you see in papyrus, and fine and smooth like vellum, but so cheap! Egypt produces as much paper as they import from the East now, and more every year. Soon there will be more books than you can imagine.” 

He swooped his pen in a final curve and turned the paper to face Nicolò. “See how well it holds the ink? No bleeding, the lines stay clean.”

He squinted at the sketch. Strong jaw, deep set eyes, a truly comical nose—”Is this supposed to be me?”

“Yes,” Yusuf said, staring at him thoughtfully. “It is.”

They left Alexandria soon after, Yusuf determined to continue towards his home and Nicolò following him for lack of anything better to do, hoping they’d run into the women from their dreams and find some answers to their inexplicable situation. They passed through dozens of markets and saw hundreds—maybe thousands—of books along the way, but he never forgot Alexandria, where it seemed for the first time that an entire world of previously-unknown riches was suddenly at his fingertips, ripe for the picking.

*

Yusuf carried a book with him all the way from Mahdia to Jerusalem. Abū Nuwās stayed tucked close to his chest in a pocket of his tunic, survived the battles and his first deaths and rebirths pressed between his armor and his skin. In the very early days, when distrust still thrummed between them and he couldn’t sleep at night, Nicolò remembers the low cadence of Yusuf’s voice, reading the poems out loud to himself by the light of the fire. Always late at night, quiet when he thought Nicolò was sleeping. He didn’t understand the language then and wouldn't for several more years, but the rhythm of the words and Yusuf’s soothing voice lulled him to sleep more than once. He longed to read it himself, to feel the pages between his fingers and smell the leather of the binding, but he never said anything to Yusuf about it. He didn’t want him to know how Nicolò listened, stealing away words not meant for him and holding them close to his heart.

* * *

**Alexandria, Egypt**

**July 1104**

They passed through Alexandria again a few years later, heading back East towards the vast grasslands and high peaks where they saw the women riding in their dreams. Things were different between them now, settled, loyal. Nicolò could speak the language, understand the shouts of the hawkers and speak to the merchants in fluent Sabir and heavily-accented Arabic. Now, instead of dragging him through the market, Yusuf proffered sugared dates and honey cakes and indulged him as he lingered in the paper market, just as awed as he was the first time. And that night, when they’d returned to their lodgings and Nicolò had fallen asleep, he woke late in the night to the sound of papers shuffling, instantly alert and thinking of intruders. Instead there was only Yusuf, sitting in a pool of candlelight, staring at him with an ink-stained hand frozen over his sketchbook, a simple gathering of papers bound up and covered in leather. Sketching him as he slept.

They stared at each other for a long moment and Yusuf dropped his gaze first, flipping the book closed and apologizing.

“No,” Nicolò said, emboldened by the late hour, or the soft candlelight, or the way Yusuf had been looking at him before he realized he was awake. He pushed himself up on his elbows and didn’t miss the way Yusuf’s gaze landed on his collarbone, exposed by the gaping neck of his tunic. “Come here.”

Yusuf obeyed, staring at him. Set his pen down, stood, and walked over carefully, slowly, as though Nicolò was about to turn him away. Nicolò wrapped his fingers around his wrist, brought him down to sit on the rough mattress and, before he could think better of it, drew him close and kissed him.

Yusuf exhaled into him like he was relieved of some great burden and brought his hands up to cup his face, careful and awed, like Nicolò was something precious, like Yusuf couldn’t believe he was really there. 

The next day, Yusuf returned from errands with a wrapped parcel and handed it to him without a word. Nicolò, still nervous and reeling from the developments of the night before, opened it with some trepidation, unsure of what to expect.

It was a book, simply bound in leather and scribed in Greek in a small, careful hand. _The Odyssey_. His hands shook over the cover, fumbled the pages as he looked up at Yusuf, disbelieving.

“What is it?” he asked stupidly, because it was difficult—no, impossible—to believe Yusuf had spent this sort of money on him, money they needed for their journey.

“ _The Odyssey_. Homer. We’ve talked of it, remember? The story of a soldier who wanders the world lost after the Trojan war, trying to find home. It takes him ten years, but he finally gets there. I thought you would like it.”

“But…” he still struggled to comprehend. “For me?”

And Yusuf smiled then, bent down to kiss him and looked delighted by the action, by the fact he could do it, by Nicolò’s shock and pleasure over the little miracle in his hands. “Yes,” he said. “For you.”

Nicolò kissed him back, and then hugged him for a long time. After a while, when they were back in bed, sweaty and satisfied and tangled together, Nicolò ran his fingers over Yusuf’s chest and said, “I could hear you when you used to read Abū Nuwās to yourself at night, you know. I didn’t understand what you were reading at first, but I liked listening to you anyway. And then, when I did understand what you were reading, I used to imagine you were reading them to me on purpose. Because you wanted me to hear it.”

Yusuf shifted a little, looking at him. “I always thought you were asleep.”

He shrugged. “No. Not usually.”

Yusuf stared at him, cupping his jaw. “I _was_ always reading to you. I wanted to be reading to you. You were always in my mind when I did.”

He blushed and tucked his face into Yusuf’s neck, felt the rumble of his laughter against his skin. “Don’t worry. I’ll spend the rest of my life reading you love poems.” He kissed a line down Nicolò’s neck and started right then, whispering in his ear:

_I die of love for you, but keep this secret:_

_The tie that binds us is an unbreakable rope._

_How much time did your creation take, O angel?_

_So what! All I want is to sing your praises._

*

Abū Nuwās and _The Odyssey_. That’s where they started.

* * *

**Central Anatolia**

**October 1119**

It was by no means the first time one of them died since they started traveling together, but something was different this time. This time, Yusuf wasn’t waking up. Such a silly way to die, too—as they approached a town, Nicolò wanted to continue on and Yusuf wanted to stop and take a room at the inn for the night. Yusuf won the argument through a convincing picture of what they could do with a bed and a real mattress. On the outskirts of the town, four men on horseback demanded coin for their passage—clearly marking them as outsiders, incorrectly assuming they would be easy prey. Yusuf attempted to wave them off, negotiating, and in a blink of an eye he was on the ground with a dagger in his chest.

Nicolò wasn’t entirely sure what happened after that, only that when he came back to himself he was alone, surrounded by three bodies and Yusuf and covered in blood. The fourth man had ridden away in a panic, probably to warn the residents of the town, and he knew they needed to leave before anyone came back. Moving to Yusuf’s side, he gently pulled the dagger out and pulled his head into his lap, waiting for him to wake. 

Only he didn’t. Usually they revived in minutes, if not seconds. Now, the minutes stretched long and he grew increasingly frantic, patting Yusuf's face, running his hands over his body, trying to find any other injuries. Yusuf remained still, a slight trickle of blood staining his lips. Nicolò wiped it away and dimly noticed he was crying, tears falling over Yusuf’s still features. 

The poetry came easily, memorized after years of hearing Yusuf read and recite it. The Arabic was clumsy in his mouth, his tongue slipping around vowels like heavy rocks. It sounded wrong in his voice, so different from Yusuf’s smooth intonation and careful cadence. _I die of love for him, perfect in every way. I die, I die, I die._

Dimly, he wondered what he would do with himself. He had nowhere to go. They still hadn’t found the women, despite extensive travels, and had decided to remain in a relatively small area in the hopes the women were perhaps searching for them. They took some jobs protecting travelers or caravans, and had settled briefly in southern Anatolia on a farm for a few years. Not once had Nicolò considered losing Yusuf. It had simply never crossed his mind. And yet here he was, with an inexplicably, impossibly dead Yusuf in his lap, and the loneliness came crashing down. 

Sobbing, he scrabbled around in the dust until he found a sharp rock and slashed it over his forearm. Blood welled, fell, and ceased just as quickly as the cut healed over in less than ten seconds. _He_ was still healing. What sort of fate would spell Yusuf’s end and spare him? What was the _point_ of all of this?

“Oh, God,” he whimpered, clutching at Yusuf’s bloody tunic. “Oh, my God.”

The man who’d fled would be back soon, probably with reinforcements from town. He needed to leave, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. Let the villagers kill him, let them take him captive. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered at all. 

There was shouting in the distance. He didn’t want them to have Yusuf’s body. He needed to get them away from here, bury him, figure out the proper rites, say goodbye. He shifted, moving Yusuf’s body off his lap slightly. At the movement, more blood spilled from between his lips and—

He coughed.

Nicolò choked and bent over him, cupping his face in his hands. “Yusuf,” he begged. “Yusuf, please.”

Yusuf coughed again and then spasmed, turning onto his side and choking on the blood that spilled out of his mouth, gasping and clutching at his chest. Nicolò tried to help him, to comfort him, but ended up just holding him, fists clenched in the back of his tunic.

“Nicolò?” Yusuf croaked. “Why are you crying?”

“You—” he gasped, “You didn’t—it’s been—I thought you were dead!”

Yusuf plucked at his blood-soaked tunic with distaste. “I certainly was.”

“No,” he said. “I thought you were _gone_.”

Yusuf rolled back over and finally looked at him, eyes going wide. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, then lifted a gentle hand to cup Nicolò’s cheek. The warmth of his palm was a hot brand against his skin. “How long?” he asked.

Nicolò just shook his head. Gently, Yusuf reached back and eased Nicolò’s hands from his tunic, replacing the fabric with his own fingers as he sat up. “My love,” he said softly, tipping their foreheads together, “I am here.”

Nicolò was shaking, every part of him trembling like a leaf in the wind. He tipped forward and tucked his face into the juncture of Yusuf’s neck and shoulder, warm and smelling most of himself. “We need to leave,” he croaked. “The men will come back, they’ll kill us again and what if—”

“We’ll be fine,” Yusuf said gently. “Come on, come—let’s go.” He stood, lifting Nicolò with him, and moved over to dig through the saddlebags of one of the horses the men had been riding. “Look, what luck—bread and dried fish and water. We won’t have to stop for a few days, we can get far away from here. And—oh.”

Nicolò was still crying, trying to steady himself, wiping the blood off his shaking hands on his equally bloody clothing. “What?” he looked over to Yusuf as he pulled a book out of the saddlebag. Thick and bound in tooled leather, it was beautiful and fine, out of place in the drab brown of the plains, the tiny towns and windswept fields. “What is it?”

Yusuf held the book out towards him. “The Bible.”

He backed away. “I don’t want it.” 

Yusuf’s brows furrowed. “Why not? You still pray, and this is your holy book.”

He shook his head. “We don’t need to carry around more weight. And besides, it looks expensive. We should leave it for his family.” He still prayed, they both did, but the sight of a book he hadn’t opened since before he met Yusuf made his stomach turn, setting off a reel of memories that still gave him nightmares.

Yusuf looked amused. “The man killed me, Nicolò, surely your kindness does not extend so far. And a single book won’t weigh us down. If you don’t want to take it, I do. The Tawrat was revealed to Musa by Allah, it’s holy to me, too.”

He stared at him. “You want it?”

Yusuf shrugged. “It’s a book. Perhaps it is time to extend our collection?”

Nicolò nodded, finally, and reached out to take it. The leather was soft against his fingers, the pages as thin as sheer fabric. 

“Thank you,” Yusuf said softly.

“For what?” His hands were still shaking and he nearly dropped the book in the dust before tucking it into his saddlebag. Yusuf smiled at him and cupped his cheek in his hand again. “For avenging me, Nicolò.” He nodded at the bodies scattered around them. “And for waiting for me to come back. I promise I would never leave without you.”

“You can’t promise that,” Nicolò whispered.

“Yes I can,” Yusuf said. “I just did.” He turned away and swung himself up on his saddle. “Come, let’s go.”

That night, by the light of the fire, Nicolò read the Song of Songs to Yusuf. “ _You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride_ _,”_ he recited, staring across the fire into Yusuf’s eyes. " _You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes_.” 

Yusuf looked back at him, eyes shining in the firelight. “I remember this passage,” he said. “I thought it was beautiful, like poetry.” 

“It was always my favorite book,” Nicolò said. “I went back to it again and again. It’s meant to be an allegory for the love Christ has for his Church, the most perfect love there is. Or I thought that was the most perfect love, until I met you.” He knows he’s speaking blasphemy and he simply can’t find it in himself to care—he never really understood the overwhelming, urgent love written of in this book until he met Yusuf.

Yusuf held out a hand and Nicolò moved around the fire to press close to him, to feel his warmth. Silently thanking God—his or Yusuf’s, or both, since Yusuf said they were one and the same—that he was still here at his side, warm and alive and laughing.

* * *

**Here and There**

**1120—2020**

They didn’t accumulate many more books beyond those first three for the next few centuries. Books were still difficult to find in many places, and prohibitively expensive. After they finally found Andromache and Quỳnh it was nonstop movement for years, no bases or safe houses to return to, just caves where Andromache, Quỳnh and Lykon hoarded things away over the years. The few books they did own they guarded carefully. Once, Nicolò rode for a full day in pursuit of a group of bandits and laid in wait until they were asleep around their evening fire to steal back Yusuf’s saddlebag that held their books.

And then, a miracle—the printing press, and bookstores everywhere. Entire stalls filled with books, still a luxury but more affordable than ever before. They had extra money every so often by then, and it all went to books. They started to pile up, stacks of them in safe houses and the rooms they rented between jobs. Some they read and passed on, but the best they kept, most of those ending up in the old cottage in the hillsides outside Mdina they acquired in the late 1600s.

Andromache never really understood. She read, of course, but it was always more chore than pleasure for her. She never could stand sitting still for too long, though she always liked it when Yusuf read out loud beside the fire after nightfall, especially in those numbing years after they lost Quỳnh. 

Booker understood. The first time he saw the bookshelves at the Malta cottage, the piles of books in St. Petersburg, the boxes in Mexico City, he almost started crying. Never mind only a small selection were in languages he could read. In Malta, he sat on the sofa and barely moved for a week and a half, working his way through three different translations of _Don Quixote_. Incidentally, that was the first time any of them saw him sober since before Jean-Pierre died. For several decades, the only time he was sober at all was when he was at the Malta cottage, working his way through their library.

And these days, as books are taken for granted and spill off shelves, fill charity shops and donation boxes, and go digital, they find the bookstores. Not the famous ones, usually; but the small shops, holes in the walls, the kind of place where half the inventory is piled up on the floor, totally unorganized.

Joe is the collector of the two of them—he likes to find the treasures, the first editions, the beautiful old things. Nicky likes the tattered paperbacks, the ones with beat-up covers and dog-eared pages, underlined passages and scribbles in the margins. Reading them is like having conversations with friends he’s never met. It comforts them both, these things people leave behind. Notes on a page. Ideas. And the words themselves, enduring and immortalized far beyond their authors’ lifetimes. His favorite stories are still those that were old before he was born— _The Aeneid_ , _The Tale of Genji, Beowulf,_ The _Rāmāyaṇa_ _, One Thousand and One Nights_. He reads Homer over and over again. Joe was right, there is something about _The Odyssey_ that captivates him still, century after century. When new translations come he reads them all, just to experience the story, still living and changing and influencing lives so long past the time when someone first put pen to paper, first opened their month to share a story. The words that endure beat back the losses, the hundreds of stories and books he once read that he’ll never read again, that faded before he was even born; the echo of flames eating up libraries and books crumbling to dust.

When they browse, Joe runs the tips of his fingers along tattered spines, tapping against the authors they used to know. When he finds someone they didn’t care for, he’ll pull out the volume to show to Nicky with raised eyebrows and a quirked mouth. He likes the feel of old books, handles them so gently with his long fingers, touches them the way he touches Nicky—reverent, with love. Nicky’s always liked the smell best—old, dusty paper. All used bookstores smell the same, no matter when or where you are in the world.

Together, they could while away lifetimes surrounded by books.

* * *

**Alexandria, Egypt**

**July 2021**

The shop in Alexandria is a favorite of theirs. Fittingly, it’s rather close to where the old paper market was, and it went from a stall to a tiny brick and mortar to taking over the two shops next to it over the years, passed from father to son. It’s the best kind of place, packed full to bursting, shelves sagging under the weight and crammed in at odd angles, volumes spilling all over the floor, gloriously unorganized. A place where they can lose themselves for hours and let the world outside fade away.

The shop’s not far from their apartment and they’re both cheerful as they stroll down towards it. They have a few weeks off while Andy teaches Nile to ride horses (something Nicky pointed out probably wasn't necessary, given 21st century modes of transport, but she’d insisted). They begged off, eager to spend some time alone together. They haven't really had a moment alone for over a year, first training and teaching Nile and cleaning up the mess from Merrick’s—tracking down the doctor, destroying the pieces of themselves she took from them—and then all trapped together in Japan during the pandemic, trying to help however they could. It was difficult—you can’t fight disease with guns and immortality, and they all struggle with feeling useless.

As soon as they were free to leave they headed towards Alexandria with very little discussion. It’s a city much, much older than either of them, which is a comfort; and also the city where they began. They haven’t visited in over twenty years, and not for sheer leisure in closer to fifty, and July is, Joe reminds him, their anniversary month. 917 years. They deserve to celebrate.

Nicky watches him tip his head back and smile, curls playing in the breeze off the water. He looks warm and happy here, some of the careworn exhaustion and grief etched into his face finally fallen away under the sun and date palms. They both still feel the most at home when they can see the waves of the Mediterranean. 

“You look happy, my love,” he murmurs softly. Joe opens his eyes and smiles over at him, wide and blinding. That open sort of joy that captivated Nicky from the first moment he saw it, that still makes him go weak at the knees.

“Very happy,” Joe says, and brushes his pinky finger against the back of Nicky’s hand. “Come on, it’s right up here, isn’t it?”

“I think so.” He picks up his pace and rounds the corner, grinding to a halt in front of…

“A convenience store?” Joe says, incredulous. “That can’t…we must have taken a wrong turn.”

“No.” Nicky feels numb. “No, we didn’t take a wrong turn.”

“But…” Joe trails off, pulling out his phone and typing furiously. “No. Shit! It closed!”

“When?” Nicky asks. A heaviness settles in his stomach and suddenly the sound of the busy street and the scents—the salty breeze, exhaust, fish, spices, the perfume of the woman who just walked behind him—are completely overwhelming, just as they were the first time he visited this city. He longs for quiet, the smell of old books, the fragility of paper between his fingertips.

“Last year,” Joe says quietly. “It says the pandemic…”

“Oh,” Nicky says bitterly, wondering how many of their favorites disappeared without them knowing it in the last few years. Next to him, Joe looks murderous. Nicky holds out a hand and he passes him the phone, turning away to kick a can into the door of the convenience store. 

“Look,” Nicky points to the phone. “There’s this other shop, it’s not far. We went there last time we were here, it was good. We can go there.”

“It wasn’t the same,” Joe mumbles, but follows Nicky’s lead.

The other bookstore isn’t bad—not quite so delightfully full or disorganized, but Nicky finds a copy of _Qantara Who Disbelieved_ that he expects Joe to be excited about, given he’s been looking for the 1966 edition for years. Joe just flips through it listlessly before handing it back to him and running his fingers over the spines in the poetry section. No taps. It seems they never knew anyone on these shelves. That somehow makes him feel even lonelier, and they leave soon after. Nicky buys an old Penguin edition of _Meditations_ because he feels bad leaving without buying anything. He won’t be able to read it without getting a bad taste in his mouth from this memory of disappointment.

Joe doesn’t speak on the way home. He throws his bag aimlessly towards a chair when they walk in the door before stalking towards the kitchen. Nicky sighs and picks up the bag, hanging it over the chair before following him.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, and Joe’s shoulders tense. He doesn’t answer, though, just stands over the sink staring out the window. There used to be a view of the harbor, back when they first acquired this apartment. Now it’s just the dull brown of the apartment blocks across the street. 

“Joe,” he says, and Joe sighs, shoulders slumping. 

“Do you ever get tired of outliving everything?” he asks. “Not the normal tired, just…so exhausted, like you can’t stand to see a single thing more fade before you go.”

Nicky thinks, _I was tired of outliving things before I died for the first time, and every day since_ , but that won’t make Joe feel better, so instead he steps up behind him and wraps his arms around his waist, tucking his face into his neck.

“What happens when there aren’t books anymore, Nico?” Joe asks plaintively. “I can’t imagine that world. I don’t want to live in that world.”

“My love,” he murmurs. “I think we’re still far from that world, if only based on our own private collection.”

“We’ll see it, though,” Joe mumbles. “Someday.” 

“Yusuf,” he replies, tugging gently at his hips. “Come on. Come here.”

Finally, Joe turns to face him and Nicky’s heart breaks at the tears in his eyes. “ _Yusuf_.”

He lets his forehead fall on Nicky’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m being silly, I know. Sometimes it just…gets to me.”

“Don’t apologize,” he murmurs. “You’re allowed to feel it. I understand.”

Joe lifts his head and kisses him once on the lips, gentle and chaste. “I know you do.”

He cups Joe’s face in his hands. “You know what is still here? I saw it on the walk back just now. Do you remember that little cafe by the harbor where we ate back in the ‘50s?”

Joe’s eyes shine. “With the kebda?”

“Yes.”

“That was 1973, darling, but I’m very glad it’s still there.”

“Me, too. So, let me take you out, hmm? To eat and then walk around the harbor, which is still here, and then go back to the bookstore and buy that copy of _Qantara_ , which I know you want, and then come back to our home, which is also still here.”

Joe loops his arms around his neck and leans close. “And when we get home?”

He smiles and leans in for another kiss. “Anything you want.”

* * *

**Chicago, Illinois**

**October 2021**

Three months later and half a world away, they’re stuck in a shitty motel room in Gary, Indiana. Nicky doesn’t know why they took this job, especially after they flew in over Lake Michigan and Nile started puking at the very sight of it. They should have called it off then, but they didn’t, and then Joe and Nile ended up trapped in a collapsed building for 48 hours, dying over and over again while Andy and Nicky waited, agonized, for emergency services to pick through the wreckage and clear it out enough for them to escape. Now they’re all sitting in Gary, shellshocked and trying to figure out how to leave the country without causing (another) international incident. 

Andy’s been on and off the phone with Copley for the last few hours and Nile and Joe have been sitting on the end of one of the beds staring into space since they got to the motel. Nicky’s been pacing, but eventually he sits down next to Joe and reaches over to grip Nile’s hand.

“What can I do?” he asks softly. “Is there anything…?”

Nile looks at him, desperate. “I can’t just keep sitting here. It’s so dark and so…I need to _move_ , I feel trapped, like I’m still there…”

“Nile, we need to make sure it’s safe first—"

“We just need to get out of this room,” Joe says. “I feel the same.”

“Couldn’t we go into the city? Just for a few hours?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea…”

“I know what I can handle,” Nile snaps. “Look, I just…there’s this used bookstore, downtown. My dad took me there a couple times, we used to go on adventures downtown together when he wasn’t gone and—well. Anyway. You like that sort of thing, don't you? Used bookstores?”

Joe and Nicky exchange a glance. They’ve never been to any bookstore in Chicago. They’ve never spent enough time here, but it is Nile’s home and Nicky can tell by the look in her eyes that it would mean the world to her to show them. 

“Are you sure?” He checks. “It wouldn’t be…”

“It’s not in the neighborhood I grew up in, or near where my mom lives now. I think it would be…nice.”

Joe makes the decision for them by standing and slapping his palms on his thighs. “Andy! We’re going on a field trip.” 

She glances up from the laptop. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“You got it, boss.” He jerks a thumb towards the door. “Let’s bounce. Is that what the kids are saying these days, Nile?”

“Not exactly,” she says, and grabs the keys.

The bookstore is perfect. Large, but cramped with a warren of shelves and tables, books piled to the ceiling and spilling across the floor, cartoons taped to the shelves and a grumpy bookseller behind the desk. They even have a decent non-English section, which they’ve found to be fairly rare in America. Joe immediately and happily buries himself in the first volume of _Meadows of Gold_ from 1861. They actually have the full nine volume set. Nicky doesn’t even want to look at the price. He’s also fairly sure they already have them sequestered away somewhere, but Joe looks perfectly content for the first time in over a week, so he’s not going to say anything. Nile disappears into the fine arts section, and he amuses himself flipping through the excellent and lurid romance selection, picking a few out just for fun before wandering towards the philosophy section.

Nile’s standing there with a biography of Norman Lewis under one arm, pouring over an old hardcover of _The Plague_. 

“Absurdism is a dangerous road to pursue, if you’re looking for philosophical guidance.” he says gently. “That way lies madness.”

She looks up at him. “I take it you speak from experience?”

He winces at the memories. “The years after the second world war were…difficult.”

She just shakes her head, the way she always does when one of them starts talking about something she learned about in history classes. He smiles at her to dispel the memories. “It’s not for you, though, is it?”

She looks down at it again. “He mentioned this one. It’s a first edition.” She runs her fingers over the tattered dust jacket. “Pretty expensive, though.”

He nods toward the clerk behind the desk. “Joe is already going to make his day, he’s about to pay an obscene price for books he already owns. You might as well add it to the pile.” Neither of them actually acknowledge who they’re talking about, but they both understand. Nile smiles slightly and moves toward the front desk. He finds his way back to Joe, now balancing all nine volumes in his hands and still buried in the first, and winds an arm around his waist.

“My love, we have that already.”

“Hmm? Where?”

“Malta, I thought. Or the apartment in Sūr.”

“No, no,” Joe murmurs, delicately turning a page. “Not in Arabic. I have it in French, from 1966, and a paperback in Arabic, but I lost these in 1914. They were in the Liège safe house.”

Nicky wrinkles his brow. “You’re sure? I thought I saw it recently.”

Joe finally looks up and presses a kiss into his hair. “Recently for you could be a hundred years ago, you pay so little attention to dates. I don’t have it, I’m sure. Lucky to find it here, of all places.”

“Lucky indeed,” he answers. “I suppose you must buy it, then.”

“I suppose I must. I saw Nile’s find. Did you tell her it’s horribly depressing and Camus isn’t worth her time?”

“You know who it’s for,” Nicky says, and Joe just sighs and leans into him. After a long moment of silence, Nicky asks, “Are you alright?”

Joe doesn’t look at him. “I think it’s good someone is talking to him. Even if she is enabling his hopeless worldview, he needs contact with someone. I just can’t be the one to do it yet."

Nicky nods. “Nor I. What about the rest of it?”

“The rest of what?”

“The mission. The way you keep rubbing at your forehead when you think I’m not looking at you. The way you keep looking around like you’re charting escape routes.”

Joe meets his eyes. “It was a shit mission and it gave me a migraine. And I’m tired.” He holds up _Meadows of Gold_. “But this makes it better, a little.”

Nicky smiles and gives him a quick peck on the very tip of his nose. “Good.”

Joe smiles at him, and if he looks tired the smile is still true. “I see you found some treasures,” He nods towards the romance novels.

“I’ll read them out loud to you tonight, to lull you to sleep. Would you like that?”

Joe laughs and kisses him again. “More than anything. Especially if we start with..." he squints at the title on top. _"When a Scot Ties the Knot."_ He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and Nicky bursts out laughing. "Ready to go?” 

“Yes,” he says, still laughing a little, and they join Nile at the front. Outside, a steady rain is falling and Joe curses and tries to tuck his large bag under his coat to protect it. Nile sighs, looking around at the buildings of her hometown.

“Do you think it’ll still be there the next time we’re here? There was hardly anyone else in there.”

They exchange a glance, both thinking of the bookstore in Alexandria and the strange grief of finding it closed. “It is a Tuesday afternoon,” Nicky points out gently. “I’m sure they’re busy on weekends. And Joe just paid enough for those books to keep them afloat for at least a month or two.”

“That’s not an answer,” Nile mumbles. She shakes her head. “I know it’s silly. You two have seen so many things come and go you probably don’t even notice it anymore. I just—it’s hard to think of this place changing, moving on without me. I’ll probably outlive the city itself.”

They look at each other again. They’ve outlived many cities, countries, empires, and they’re still young, compared to Andy. Nile will outlive more than she can dream.

Joe sighs and speeds up slightly to rest a hand on Nile’s wet shoulder. “We notice, he says softly. “I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but it doesn’t. You get used to it, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

“Just because we keep living doesn’t mean we stop hurting,” Nile mumbles almost too quietly to hear.

“Wise words,” Joe says. “Who told you that?”

She shrugs and forces a smile. “Well, anyway. I guess it’s a good reminder to live in the moment, huh? You two ever try deep dish before? There’s a good place somewhere around here.”

Nicky gasps, overdramatic, and rests a hand on his chest. “Nile, do not tell me you’re about to force me, an Italian, to eat that absolute travesty you call pizza.”

She scoffs, but there’s a hint of laughter behind it. “Get over yourself. You’re way older than Italy or pizza.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have _respect_ for the--”

“I like deep dish,” Joe interrupts and Nicky feigns horror, shoving him away. “My own husband. I thought I knew you!”

Nile bursts out laughing, the heavy sadness melting away as quickly as it overcame her. She strides ahead, pointing out buildings and the direction of the river, the Art Institute, the L line that goes towards her old neighborhood as they trail behind her. Joe catches Nicky’s hand and squeezes. He squeezes back. Over nine hundred years of watching everything pass them by, and there are still cities new to them, still more bookstores to find. Still Joe by his side. He feels suddenly light.

“I love you,” he murmurs to Joe before they duck into the pizza place, and Joe plants a kiss on his lips in reply before shoving a parcel into his hands and disappearing after Nile. Nicky lingers under the awning, sheltered from the rain, and unwraps the plastic bag around the book.

A paperback, small and worn, the kind Nicky loves. Joe must have hidden it between the volumes of _Meadows of Gold._ Pablo Neruda, _Cien Sonetos de Amor_. A bookmark from the store sticks up between pages and he flips to it, the words already playing through his mind.

Joe first read this poem to him in 1960, on a late spring morning in Malta. Sunlight and splayed limbs over white sheets, the scent of coffee and blooming apricot trees, the warmth of Joe’s fingers brushing up and down his ribs as he read to him, quiet and devastatingly sincere. And the thousand times since—read out loud or left scrawled on a napkin, marked in translations in a dozen languages, traced on the naked skin of backs and whispered into open, panting mouths—the words familiar enough he can recall them in a heartbeat, but he reads it once more, just to be sure: 

This, he thinks, will outlive them. Even if in song, even if in memory.

If anything can, it will be words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious, see the next chapter for extensive notes, references, and links! I'm on [tumblr](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com), too!


	2. Notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to move the notes to a different chapter since they're too long to fit in the actual end notes and I felt like they were annoying tacked on to the story! Added a few more details and links to this version. Thanks for reading!

**NOTES**

I spent a lot of time researching for this fic and now I know a lot about papermaking, Italian monasteries, markets during the Fatimid Caliphate, relative literacy rates in Europe and the Levant in the 11th century, and Al-Masudi. You probably don’t want to know all this but I’m a nerd and I think it’s cool, so if you do, here it is. Links below. If you notice any mistakes while reading, please don’t hesitate to let me know. I’m not a historian or a scholar and I welcome any corrections and criticism. 

1) [Paper](https://interestingengineering.com/the-long-and-complex-history-of-paper) similar to what we know today made its way from China to Central Asia and the Levant in the late 700s. By 793 there was an established papermaking industry in Baghdad, and the product spread fairly quickly, replacing the use of expensive vellum and more fibrous papyrus. The proliferation of paper led to innovations in [bookbinding](http://ultimatehistoryproject.com/the-islamic-codex.html), with bookmakers binding paper with silk thread and covering it with leather-covered paste boards. By the 12th century, bookstores were common throughout the Muslim world. In Europe, paper was introduced in the tenth century but generally rejected in favor of parchment or vellum. In monasteries and other centers of writing in Europe in the 11th century, [vellum would have been the common material used](https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/spread-papermaking-technology-europe), but, as Joe points out, vellum does swell in humidity, which is why so many early codexes have to be held shut with clasps and why paper was instantly preferable for most of the world’s markets. For a fascinating description of a paper market in Baghdad in the 10th century, check out [this podcast](http://www.thefeastpodcast.org/2017/8/31/arkhfxa5a82efgvttes5ms69u6krrv) about a tenth-century cookbook that still survives in its entirety.

2) I decided to give Nicky a monastic background for this story in order to give him more experience with books, reading and writing. While opinions vary on [how literate priests and monks really were in the middle ages](https://www.jstor.org/stable/358385?refreqid=excelsior%3Aa97de424bbd5610ab2ab624a5408dc71&seq=1), it’s not a stretch to assume [Nicky would have been able to read and write in Latin and Greek](https://www.britannica.com/topic/education/The-Carolingian-renaissance-and-its-aftermath). [Sabir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca) was the Lingua Franca of Mediterranean trade at the time, and it borrowed from many languages including the dialects of Genoa and Venice. I would not assume Nicky would be fluent in it, given he was not a merchant, but he probably would have been able to understand and speak it a bit. If Joe was a merchant, he most likely would have been fluent.

3) While pre-made sketchbooks were likely not available until the 15th or 16th century, [handmade sketchbooks and notebooks were most likely common](https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-mediums/drawing/sketchbooks-then-now-part-1-art-supplies-giveaway/) and have been found in [China, Japan](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/585201/long-history-marbled-composition-book), and other areas where paper was common and readily available. I imagine Joe bound pages for his sketches himself to keep them together and protected.

4) The [oldest surviving Homeric manuscripts](https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/homer-print-transmission-and-reception-homers-works/homer-print/) date back to the 9th century CE, though they were certainly written down long before then (6th century BCE). The earliest surviving fragment is from the 3rd century BCE. There was interest in the stories during the Fatimid Caliphate and the Byzantine Era, leading to a proliferation of manuscripts from the 9th century to the 15th century CE. The main source for the stories in Europe were from abridged and somewhat inaccurate Latin translations. It is very likely that Joe would have been able to find a (relatively) affordable bound copy of The Odyssey in Greek in Alexandria in 1104.

5) Everyone in this fandom already knows about Abū Nuwās and that gay poem he wrote but in case you don’t, the lines they recite to each other are from the poem usually titled “Love In Bloom” in English. Abū Nuwās was writing in the late 8th and early 9th centuries and copies of his work certainly would have been available in The Maghreb in the late 11th century.

6) [Copies of the Bible in Greek would have been available](https://www.biblica.com/resources/bible-faqs/how-was-the-bible-distributed-before-the-printing-press-was-invented-in-1455/) in the 12th century throughout the Mediterranean region. Muslims consider the [Torah (Tawrat)](https://injil.org/Kalimatullah/revelations.html) to be sacred, revealed by Allah to Musa (Moses), and it is one of the Islamic holy books. The Tawrut usually refers to all the books of the Hebrew Bible, rather than just the original Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), which includes the Song of Songs. Song of Songs in Christian tradition is generally seen to be an allegory for Christ’s love for the Church (his bride), but it’s pretty sexy stuff and damn good love poetry. I come from a Christian background, so if I get anything wrong with my treatment of Yusuf and his relationship to the content in the Bible please let me know!

7) The [printing press](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press) was invented in the 1440s and printing shops were active throughout Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and North Africa by the early 1500s. By 1500, the printing presses in Europe alone had produced over twenty million copies of books, and the price of books fell. This also led to a dramatic increase in literacy rates in Europe.

8) [_The Aeneid_](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Aeneid) was written by the Roman poet Virgil between 30 and 19 BCE. [_The Tale of Genji_](https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Tale-of-Genji) was written by Murasaki Shikibu in early 11th century Japan and is often considered to be the world's first "novel". [_Beowulf_](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Beowulf) was likely composed between 700 and 750 CE, though the earliest known manuscript dates from around 1000 CE. The _[Rāmāyaṇa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana#India) _is an ancient Indian epic written in Sanskrit and traditionally ascribed to the poet Valmiki. The earliest stages of the text are likely from the 7th century BCE with later additions dating from up to the 3rd century CE. _[One Thousand and One Nights](https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Thousand-and-One-Nights) _is a collection of folktales with origins ranging from Arabia, Persia, Greece, Turkey, India, and Jewish tradition. The earliest compilation was probably Persian, referenced in the 9th century, and the earliest known Arabic version is the _Alf Layla (_ A Thousand Nights) compiled in Baghdad in the 10th century.

9) The old Alexandria bookstore is based on the description of a bookstore my dad visited in Alexandria in the 70s. Unfortunately he doesn’t remember the name or exactly where it was, so I couldn’t check to see if it was still in business.

10) [Qantara Who Disbelieved](http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/18/62/50815/Books/Review/Book-Review-First-novel-written-in-colloquial-Arab.aspx) by Mustafa Musharafa is the first novel written entirely in colloquial Egyptian Arabic. It was first published in 1966 and not reprinted until 2012 and 1966 edition is pretty difficult to find. It hasn’t been translated into English, and I also saw the title referred to as Quantara Who Disbelieves and Quantara the Unbeliever. If you happen to know the most accurate translation, do let me know.

11) I feel like Nicky would find a lot of comfort in _Meditations_ by Marcus Aurelius and own several copies of it.

12) Kebda is spiced liver that is very popular in sandwiches in Alexandria, known as Kebda Eskandarani.

13) The Chicago bookstore is an amalgamation of Powell’s Books Chicago and Ravenswood Bookstore. Both are open for business.

14) [Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems](https://muse.jhu.edu/article/494651/pdf) is a huge work of scientific geography, philosophy, and history by Al-Masudi, a 10th century historian and scholar from Baghdad. He traveled extensively throughout Western and Central Asia, North and East Africa, and India and most likely reached parts of what is now China as well. Scholars are unsure of his background or profession, but hypothesize he was a merchant, which would have fueled his extensive travels. Meadows of Gold is likely an abridgment of some of his longer early works, edited and compiled to be more readable and useful as a reference to contemporary scholars, and it became well known and respected in his time and beyond his death. The first European translation of Meadows and Gold was published in French and Arabic (both in the same volume), in [nine volumes between 1861 and 1877](https://islam.wikia.org/wiki/Al-Masudi). A revision was published in French in 1966. A full set of the 1861-77 edition would be extremely rare, extremely expensive, and probably not on a shelf somewhere in Chicago, but this is fiction and Joe deserves it.

15) Norman Lewis was an African American painter known for abstract expressionism.

16) I took that split second scene of Booker and Andy with Don Quixote and ran with it. Don Quixote has themes of absurdism, existentialism and nihilism that later influenced those philosophies. [Absurdism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism) specifically deals with the human tendency to try to find meaning and purpose in an essentially meaningless, chaotic and irrational universe. Booker’s rejections of Nicky’s comment on destiny backs up my headcanon that he fell in the hole of Absurdism and Nihilism and never quite managed to crawl his way out, which would provide rationale for his betrayal of the team. I think Booker would have liked [Camus](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/)’ work, though I feel like all of them might have hung out with the guy and perhaps not been ultimately impressed with him.

17) Tired of the crushing reality of existence? Want to get lost in some lurid Regency romance that isn't _good_ , but is also, like, really GOOD? Read Tessa Dare, including but not limited to the timeless classic _When a Scot Ties the Knot_.

18) Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda from 100 Love Sonnets, I know you know. That photo is from a 2014 Spanish/English edition rather than a Spanish edition from the 60s, but it does the trick.

19) This fic was inspired by Mr. Kenzari destroying me with his galaxy brain and Sonnet 17 (thank you King), and the closing of my favorite used bookstore thanks to the pandemic. Many bookstores, especially used bookstores, are struggling right now so if you have one you love, check them out online and see if you can order some books or donate to a gofundme to keep them afloat. Call me old fashioned, but I think there’s something special and very, very human about reading books that have passed through other people’s hands, and I hope we can do that for a long time to come.

20) If you made it through this, congrats. Find me on [Tumblr](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com/) if you want!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading it through, love. You know who you are.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Find me on Tumblr and Discord (PrevalentMasters)!


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